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<title>if i’m dead to you, why are you at the wake? by thebeautifulbadass</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25497823">if i’m dead to you, why are you at the wake?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebeautifulbadass/pseuds/thebeautifulbadass'>thebeautifulbadass</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>you and me, we’re the stuff of folklore [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dead To Me (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, I'm so sorry, Song fic, blame Taylor Swift, but please bear with me!!!, following the events of 1x09 and 1x10 (minus Steve), plz don't hate me, this one is a major doozy, very short but that's probably a good thing because whewwwww</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:02:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>875</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25497823</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebeautifulbadass/pseuds/thebeautifulbadass</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jen tells Judy to disappear off the fucking planet, Judy listens, and Jen has to live with the guilt.</p><p>Inspired by "my tears ricochet" by Taylor Swift.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Judy Hale/Jen Harding</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>you and me, we’re the stuff of folklore [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1847128</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>47</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>if i’m dead to you, why are you at the wake?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So I was drinking wine and listening to Folklore with my girlfriend last night, and when I heard the lyric “if I’m dead to you” I literally gasped and side-eyed her. And then a bit later, she turned to me and was like “Are you listening to these lyrics??? This song is insanely Jen and Judy.” And…….yeah. “my tears ricochet” is 5000% Judy to Jen after the events of 1x09 and 1x10. Like, did Taylor Swift binge Dead to Me at the beginning of quarantine and write this song ABOUT Judy and Jen? Let’s not rule it out. (I’m kidding. But remember when “Death by a Thousand Cuts” from Lover was literally inspired by a Netflix movie? Just saying.)</p><p>Anyway. I was instantly inspired to write. This song especially, but there are lyrics from several other Folklore songs that I also want to use for fics. So I decided to start a series! So far I have 10 fic titles/ideas planned out. They’ll probably be unconnected one-shots, but I’m putting them all under one series because of the Folklore album connection. We’ll see what happens! I usually don’t like posting things before they’re completely done, but there’s no way I’m waiting until I’ve finished TEN FICS to post this, so. Here you go. I had the “my tears ricochet” lyrics open while writing this, so there are lots and lots of subtle and not-subtle references throughout. I'm SO sorry for all the angst. I swear they won’t all be this painful. Or this literal. Please don’t hate me.</p><p>Disclaimer: I’m not sure how long it’ll take me to write the whole series, because I’m a perfectionist and it takes me a long-ass time to finish things. For instance, this is the eighth Dead to Me fic I’ve started over the past six weeks. I did not expect a surprise Taylor Swift album to come along and tear my attention away from the three that are VERY CLOSE to being finished, but here we are.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Jen gets the phone call, she’s standing in the kitchen one second, and in the next, her entire world has crumbled to dust, like someone, somewhere, snapped their fingers and eviscerated her entire existence in an instant.</p><p>The words <em> hit by a truck,</em> <em> died on impact,</em> <em> suicide,</em> cut through the viscous fog coating her eardrums, her neurons, and she isn’t sure what happens next because the only words she hears now are coming from her own thoughts: <em> it’s your fault, it’s your fault, it’s your fault, it’s your fault. </em></p><p>The day of the funeral, Jen is there, sunglasses on, blending into the crowd, and she doesn’t talk to anyone, she just sits quietly in the back, an agonizing churn in her stomach as she listens to others speak about this woman she loved, and it hits her—this love—like a truck, like the truck that killed her Judy, and her brain screams, <em> Fuck you, Judy, fuck you, how could you leave me? </em>She knows it’s her own fault, knows she drove her to this, but she’s so angry, and so alone, and all she can think is, <em> I know I told you to leave, but why didn’t you stay? Why didn’t you fight harder for me? </em></p><p>It’s unfair, this thought, but it’s easier than the darker one that digs into her, talons deep in her soul, that has been reminding her over and over again for days that this turn of events unequivocally links back to the very words she said to Judy, the words that were meant to pierce her in the heart, meant to hurt, to wound, to dig deep and make Judy <em> bleed,</em> but now that they have, all Jen feels is empty, her bones hollow with the act of <em> missing.</em> She feels an ache, a numb <em> I miss you </em> deep in her bones, with every beat of her heart, and she is certain that she will feel it with every heartbeat until it beats its last. She wonders if Judy felt this ache too, when someone she loved told her to disappear off the fucking planet, when she listened and did just that.</p><p>Jen doesn’t know how to bear the weight of Judy’s absence pounding down on her shoulders. She thinks it’s a little ironic how heavy of a weight it is, the absence of someone. And now that she’s lost two people in less than half a year, the weight is immense and she can barely hold herself upright. She’s on her way home from the funeral, and it occurs to her that the word <em> home </em> doesn’t mean much to her anymore, now that she’s lost the person who picked up the shattered pieces of her family the last time death tore it apart. Who will put them back together now? Now that they’ve been torn apart a second time?</p><p>She gets into bed that night even though she knows she won’t be able to sleep, and she lies there staring at the ceiling, her mind replaying everything, including the good: Judy’s smile, Judy’s laugh, the touch of Judy’s hand on her arm on nights similar to this one, staring at the ceiling, wide awake, but with Judy next to her saying something ridiculous, making her roll her eyes, relaxing her into sleep. Now there is no one. Again, there is no one.</p><p>And Jen knows this is it, she can never fully recover from this double whammy of loss, and she will forever exist as fragments of herself. If it weren’t for her boys, she would be deeply afraid of herself in this moment, afraid to go near knives or cliffs or bodies of water, and as if she isn’t feeling enough guilt, she feels guilty about this thought too, because her children deserve better than a dead father, a dead mother-figure, and a shell of a mother left behind, a mother with thoughts so sharp they kill.</p><p>She can blame Judy all she wants for turning her into her worst nightmare, but it wasn’t Judy who turned up the heat on her simmering anger and transformed it into hot, blistering rage. It wasn’t Judy who made her a killer. And even if she continues to exist, to go through the motions, to love her boys the best she can, the act of killing Judy has killed her in turn, as if the knife of her horrible words was shoved back into her own stomach and twisted, twisted, twisted until she received that phone call and bled out on the kitchen floor.</p><p>Jen finally allows herself to cry the type of cry she’s needed for the past five days, imagines herself as a mirror of the way she made Judy feel in her last moments on earth, and around 3:30 in the morning, her eyes close and she sleeps, fitfully, dreaming of Judy, who looks at her with wide, sad eyes, pleading <em> Please let me come home, Jen. I love you so much. </em></p><p>She wakes with a gasp only an hour and forty-six minutes later, cursing Judy’s name, wishing she could replace reality, reach through her subconscious, take Judy’s hand, drag her back from the grave, and say <em> I’m sorry. I need you to come home. </em></p>
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